THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE/CULT SUICIDE DEALIE

I. Who was Jim Jones?

--white trash from Indiana, his father was reputedly in the KKK.
--"voracious" reader as a child; extensively studied world leaders, demagogues, etc. Obsessed with death and religion at a young age.
--Honors student in HS. Attended Butler College.
--at age of 20 joined Communist Party, although he soon became frustrated with the negative connotation the term "communist" had in the US. (He was a Stalinist.)
--eventually he realized that if he were to espouse a hardcore religious angle, he'd be able to a) reach a wider audience and b) he'd have a steady stream of income from members of a potential congregation. He pinpointed devoutly religious African-Americans as potential members of his "flock".
--After being given a public position on an Indianapolis Human Rights commission (Indianapolis was still heavily segregated at this time), he accordingly set about on a campaign flamboyantly stressing integration. In his personal life, he adopted several non-white children as an emblem of his de-segregationist views.

II. The founding of his temple thingy

--*humorous tidbit* - he sold pet monkeys door-to-door to fund his church.
--he became preoccupied with the idea of nuclear war, and moved to Brazil scouting potential locales for his Temple/ministry while concealing his true, atheistic views.
--by the late 1960s, he was openly sermonizing that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment -- socialism." Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Jesus, Gandhi, Lenin, Buddha, etc.
--by the mid-70s he began openly admitting his atheism and openly denouncing Christianity. [I'm likin' this guy more and more!]
--1975 Jones was appointed as head of San Fran Housing Commission by Mayor Moscone. This afforded him unprecedented access to politicians/influence. Harvey Milk was an avid supporter of Jones, and he was quite close with Rosalynn (sp?)
--by this point his congregation consisted of ~1000 people. The tenets of his temple seem to have been: communal living; communal raising of children (including ritualistic beatings), humility, open disregard of Christianity, self-sufficiency re farming (the failure of their agriculture was a huge blow to Jonestown later on)
--along with his increasingly visible public profile came increased media scrutiny. Despite his having forged alliances with prominent members of the media, people were beginning to realize that something fishy was going on so he decided to move the whole kit and kaboodle to Guyana.

III. Jonestown settled

--Eventually due to media pressure, Guyana was chosen as the relocation site based (supposedly due to their connecting American big business with "creeping fascism"), but also likely because of the lack of a US-Guyana extradition treaty (?)
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